


screaming the name of a foreigner's god

by longingcore



Series: Fantasy High High Fantasy AU [1]
Category: Dimension 20 (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Royalty, But you know what I'm talking about, Canon-Typical Violence, Just barely blink and you'll miss it fabriz, Knights and Princesses and stuff like that, Like seriously it is one throwaway line that could be interpreted a hundred ways, Other, Yes I know Fantasy High is already Fantasy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-14
Updated: 2020-07-14
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:22:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25257619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/longingcore/pseuds/longingcore
Summary: ....She doesn’t even need to hear him ask, but he does anyway,"Will you knight me?”...or: Riz gets knighted.
Relationships: Adaine Abernant & Riz Gukgak
Series: Fantasy High High Fantasy AU [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1829881
Comments: 14
Kudos: 79





	screaming the name of a foreigner's god

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to Mac for putting the idea of Fantasy High High Fantasy AU in my head, and building it with me, and the rest of the C20 server for listening to me be annoying about it.
> 
> This mostly exists because I wanted all the imagery of a Fantasy High High Fantasy AU without writing any of the complex political machinations of that. In canon equivalent, this takes place during the tail end of "Cool Kids, Cold Case" 
> 
> Title from "Foreigner's God" by Hozier
> 
> I'll put a little more context in the end notes, but other than that, I hope you enjoy!

Riz is trying to sleep when he makes one of the most important decisions of his life.

It was the one night a week Adaine had pulled rank to insist on both of them taking off, telling Riz in a tender but stubborn tone, _We won't solve anything if we never sleep, Riz._

Riz had silently disagreed, but Adaine so infrequently commanded him to do anything that to disobey left a foul taste in his mouth. So he had gone to bed hours before he normally did so, Fabian having echoed one of Riz’s first sentiments to him, softer and more genuine than Riz had ever thought he’d hear it, _I bid you goodnight, Sir Gukgak._ Fabian had disregarded Riz’s station in this way a hundred times now, no matter how much Riz had insisted to the contrary, _I cannot claim that title, Your Highness._

But hours later, lying alone in bed, the sound of it is a wave that washes over him. 

He remembers the solemn finality of the strike that he had killed Daybreak with. How at that moment all he could think of was Penny in the same position, fourteen and glowing with pride at the wooden sword that loomed above her, wielded by Riz. How the sword had not been wooden anymore, and Riz had seen the light reflected in the arc of it. Penny’s last lesson to him, one she likely would never see take, had finally taken, and Riz hadn’t hesitated. 

Riz sighs, giving up on his attempt to sleep, and gets out of bed. The stone is cold even with the wool socks he had not yet abandoned for the spring. He opens the chest beside his dresser, digging under the cloth wrapped around his chain mail to find his whetstone. He grabs his sword, resting against the wall, and the jug of water atop his dresser, and brings them over to the table that acts as his desk, pushing the papers that previously occupied the space there to the side.

Riz sharpens his sword methodically. One of the last memories he has with his father is this, Riz’s small hands holding this very same sword, Pok Gukgak’s placed strong and guiding on top of them, as he showed Riz the ins and outs of sword maintenance, a knowledge that Riz now knows came from the experience of a knight, and not the study of a scribe. Riz’s hands slowly turn silvery in the moonlight with the residue that comes off the blade. Riz stares down at them, the color more concentrated in the still healing scars that cross his palms, and he knows. 

He had never been allowed to be a squire. When he was young he didn’t understand why, would plead as his mother tucked him into bed after another story of valiant heroes, and she would shake her head sadly, say she hoped he would never have to understand. 

When he was a little bit older, he found ways to get around this, met with Penny when the moon was where it was now, not yet at its midpoint in the sky, and she would teach him all she had learned from his mother that day.

He remembers again the first time he had beat her in a match, her proud expression turning into sympathy with his pleading words, _They have to let me be a knight now, don’t they?_ Her soft retort, a thumb wiping the dirt on his cheek away, _Kiddo, they didn’t even want me to be one._

He had finally understood then, what his mother had never wanted him to. That she had buried an empty casket meant to contain her husband in a foreign land, and the gravestone above it had said nothing but his name. That his father had been the last Sir Gukgak, and no one would ever know it. That she had wanted a different fate for her son.

He remembers Adaine’s offer, made to him after the fight in the kitchens.

He takes one last glance at the door that leads to his mother's bedroom, thinks an apology at it,

_Fate is hard to avoid_

And then he sneaks out the window.

Riz has taken this route a thousand times, knows the best pockmarks in the stone to fit his claws into and the places too darkened in shadow for any guard stationed below to catch a glimpse of him. He pulls himself up to Adaine’s balcony, freezes when the sound of him finding his footing is louder than expected, and then, when no guard shouts out, knocks on her balcony doors. 

She opens it in her nightgown, bleary-eyed and suspicious. She opens her mouth, seeming as if she’s ready to send Riz back to bed, before catching sight of Riz’s sword by his side. 

She doesn’t even need to hear him ask, but he does anyway,

"Will you knight me?”

_____

Riz’s peers in childhood had often dreamed of their weddings. Riz had dreamt of his dubbing ceremony. 

He had envisioned all of it. His mother’s quiet but proud smile in the pews behind him, Adaine’s teasing one from behind her father. Penny’s hug when he joined her in her guard position on the far wall. When Kristen came to court he imagined handing his sword off to her to be blessed. 

When Penny had been knighted, Riz sat in the pews, his hands perfectly folded. She looked a holy vision as she kneeled in front of the crown princess, the sun from the stained glass streaming in to alight her red hair in a fiery gold. Riz couldn’t see her face from where he was, but he knew that her expression was a picture of devotion that no artist in all of Fallinel could capture. He had tried so hard to simply be happy for her, but there was still this jealousy in his chest, _I will never get to have this._

And he wouldn’t. 

Riz kneels down in front of Adaine not in the chapel but on the beach, his knees digging into soft sand. 

Instead of the morning sun, the moon is high in the sky where it shines down on them. They were far enough from the shore that the waves can’t reach them, but any evidence that they were there would be washed away by high tide. And instead of a priest to bless his sword, or a brother or sister in arms waiting off to the side to receive him, he has Adaine. 

She looks down at him, one last silent question of _Are you sure?_ Apparent on her face. Riz nods his head. She gives him a small nervous smile, before gathering herself into a regal image, one of the second in line for the throne, Her Highness, the Princess Adaine Abernant of Fallinel. 

She takes a breath, and starts, 

"Riz Gukgak, son of General Sklonda Gukgak of Fallinel and Sir Pok Gukgak of Spyre, do you vow to protect crown and country, and pledge yourself to the kingdom of Fallinel, under this the light of the gods?" 

Riz looks up at her. It’s not the image he’s used to.

Adaine had been rebellious as a child, Riz remembers. It had always been much more likely to see her stockings ripped at the knees, swinging her legs off the edge of the cliffside in a reckless show of youth and blatant disregard for her life's position than to see her as a mirror to her mother and sister. Riz had gawked at her freedom then, how slight it might have been. Riz in childhood could never have gotten away with any rebellion, even if he had been the rough and tumble general's son that he was expected to be.

But even now, at fifteen, just past the age of marriageable, Adaine hated propriety, tradition, the daily rituals of royal life. She always found a way to steal away to gossip with him at every ball, rolled her eyes at Aelwyn’s snippy comments. Abandoned her circlet at any cause. 

But she was wearing it now, the moonlight reflecting off the waves painting her soft blonde curls and the white of her nightgown in an ethereal light. And Riz forgets propriety, forgets station, forgets anything that is not Adaine, her solemn gaze staring him down, his _princess,_ his _sister._

He had never dared to think it before. There was no blood in him that deemed him worthy enough to call her that, but still, all of the blame he had taken for her ripped stockings, all the tears wiped away when one of Aelwyn's comments cut too deep, all the times Adaine had needed him and he'd been there with a hand on her shoulder without another word, it rings true.

The only proof of brotherhood in Riz Gukgak’s body was the vow that hummed through him, one he speaks now,

"I, Riz Gukgak, son of General Sklonda Gukgak of Fallinel and Sir Pok Gukgak of Spyre, vow to protect the people of all the realms, and the Princess, Her Highness Adaine Abernant of Fallinel, I pledge myself to them and to her, under this the light of the gods." 

There are tears running down Adaine's face as the sound of Riz’s modified vow washes over her, but she does not falter. 

She takes Riz's sword, his last gift from his father, from where it rests in Riz's open palms. In succession, she brings both flat sides of the blade to her mouth, a kiss for justice, and a kiss for loyalty. She taps Riz’s right shoulder, then left, and then, quick as lightning, drives it into the sand between them, the sound of the strike echoing on the wind. 

Riz places his hands on the hilt in between Adaine's, and a pang of nostalgia for the game they had played when they were children, trying to beat each other’s grasp to the top of a stolen broomstick, goes through him. They weren’t children anymore, he realizes, and they never would be again. 

Adaine releases her grip on the sword, leaving it for Riz alone to wield.

"Then rise, Sir Gukgak."

And he does.

**Author's Note:**

> Some context:
> 
> -The Abernants are the reigning royal family of Fallinel.  
> -Fabian is the Prince of Leviathan. He's in Fallinel for some stuff I might elaborate on later if I feel like it.  
> -The reason Penny gets to be a knight and Riz doesn't is because she saved Aelwyn's life and Aelwyn was willing to vouch for Penny's honor, and Aelwyn is the crown princess and in much better standing with her parents than Adaine is. Aelwynny Rights!  
> -The reason Sklonda is a general but Riz isn't allowed to be a knight is very complicated politically, and definitely not able to be explained in the end notes. 
> 
> Some notes on historical accuracy:
> 
> -I know the ages of being knighted are far off, and more likely if Riz had been allowed to be a knight, he would just barely be a squire.  
> -I know the comment about Adaine being of marriageable age is wrong. More likely, she would have been at least sixteen. It was a little more common for royalty, but not so much so that it was the common thought.  
> -I also know that the actual ceremony isn't completely accurate either, though it changed throughout the times and country to country.  
> -All this being said, I tried to be as historically accurate as I could while still blending the story with Fantasy High, and also they aren't actually in the middle ages. The countries aren't the same, they have magic, it's a fantasy au and some things are different.
> 
> If you have any more questions you're welcome to ask me about it on Tumblr @infaethable or on Twitter @ninehells4hope !


End file.
